We Love You, Jody

Gayle Sulik PhD, On April 23rd, 2016

In the spring of 2013, our friend and colleague Jody Schoger was diagnosed with a breast cancer recurrence. After 15 years of remission, she was thrown back into breast cancer treatment. Only this time, it was a metastatic lobular breast cancer and life changed forever.

Living with an incurable cancer meant coming to terms with being in active treatment for life and looking for medical stability or moments of no progression, when the cancer stands still or even shrinks in some places. Cure is not part of the deal with metastatic disease, at least not at this point in the history of medical science. Incurable means incurable. That can be a hard pill to swallow.

Jody told us then that, “The only ‘good’ way of coping is the way that provides you and your family with the best possible life.” She stayed true to that advice for more than two and a half years, even as energy drained, side effects creeped in (sometimes with more of a stampede), priorities shifted, treatments failed and were replaced with other treatments, that then failed. Jody chose to live a life full of the things that feed her and make her tick.

And she’s doing it again now, with a decision to enter hospice care. With no other medical treatment available and a failing liver, our dear friend and phenomenal health advocate continues to walk her talk. The only good way of coping is the way that provides you and your family with the best possible life.

We love you, Jody. We support your decision. May your days be full of peace, joy, laughter, and all those things that make life worth living.

—

Jody Schoger died on May 18, 2016 at age 61 of metastatic breast cancer.